Ivanka Trump’s Silence On The Health Care Votes Is Deafening

If you didn't stay up to watch the light go out on the Republicans' final effort to kill Obamacare in the Senate, you likely woke up the next morning to news about it. But if there's one person who didn't appear concerned about the GOP's monumental defeat — or, indeed, any of its dogged assaults on the health care law this week — it was Ivanka Trump, who tweeted about Foxconn, not health care, on Friday morning, once again proving that "the Trump whisperer" and first daughter is living on a different planet.

As political figures shared their thoughts and takes on the skinny repeal failure, Trump tweeted a CNBC article about Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics supplier, entering a deal with Wisconsin to build a $10 billion factory in the state. As others mulled the significant Republican defeat and what that means for the health care law, Trump quoted White House aide Reed Cornish's comment on Foxconn: "America can not only compete but we can be dominant globally in advanced and skilled manufacturing."

As millions of Americans whose health care would have been at risk breathed sighs of relief and celebrated the victory, Trump tweeted about a White House win that The New York Times reported would cost $3 billion of Wisconsin taxpayers' money in tax credits.

Trump kept mum all week on the many health care votes in the Senate, beginning with Tuesday's vote on the motion to proceed. Despite the Congressional Budget Office's evaluation that tens of millions of Americans would lose health coverage under the GOP's various health care bills — and Republican male lawmakers threatening physical retaliation against their female colleagues over it — Trump has remained notably quiet about the topic.

In the early months of her father's presidency, Trump was hailed as something of a moderating influence tempering his volatility, a relatively liberal beacon in the White House. She wrote a book about working moms, proposed a bill on maternity care, and has been touted by some as a feminist icon. But despite her selling herself as a force in the White House, her father kept rolling out controversial decisions — the military transgender ban, pulling out of the Paris climate accord — reportedly antithetical to her positions.

Trump has attempted to defend her position in the White House to the media, lamenting the "viciousness" of the political world. She later said that she tries to "stay out of politics." (Trump holds the official role as the White House assistant to the president, and at the G20 Summit in Hamburg in early July, she briefly sat in for her father alongside other world leaders in a meeting.)

Trump may not have the political experience that other assistants to the president have had. She may prefer to highlight the wins of her father's administration, rather than its losses. But in the fight on health care, an issue that overwhelmingly affects women in America, her decision to sit back and stay quiet as others did the heavy lifting will likely be another discredit to her claim as a powerful woman helping to elevate other women.